LUTON LABOUR PARTY SHOULD HAVE GONE TO SPECSAVERS

Labour chiefs in Luton South have ruled out deselecting their MP, who has faced criticism for claiming £22,500 to fix dry rot at a property. Margaret Moran has since responded to public fury by repaying the money. Constituency chairman Mahmood Hussain said members of the party executive unanimously agreed that they have full confidence in Ms Moran as MP.
(via Teletext)

You have full confidence in a thief and a liar, Mr Mahmood Hussain. You were on the right track when you first realized there was something dodgy about her and said:

“What makes me angry is that these are things that our elected members shouldn’t be claiming. The expenses thing in general has made me very angry because I am a councillor who represents Farley ward, one of the most deprived areas in the country.”

I'm must try nicking some stuff from one of your voters' shops and then offering to pay when I am caught, arguing that it's not actually thieving if you offer to pay and anyway, I thought I was entitled to it if I pretended to be living with the shop-keeper. No wonder your ward is deprived - Margaret is depriving them.

Companies House documents clearly show that Moran's partner, Michael Booker, was ordinarily resident in Luton, where he is on the electoral register, with Margaret, and has been since at least October 2006. They nip down to Southampton where he has a pad he bought in the late 1980s as he has a job in the university. As they don't have children and the university term is short, he probably doesn't spend much time there. At least, that's what the neighbours in Southampton say. " We only see them there occasionally. We don't have a lot to do with them if we can help it.”

The neighbours aren't absolutely clear that the money went on dry rot treatment. They mention an extension to the back of the kitchen and an en-suite shower in the bedroom. That would come up to £22.5k, whereas dry rot can be a more modestly priced treatment in a small Edwardian terraced property.

It's a nice place, Southampton. Good shopping in the fantastic new mall and handy for the seaside, the New Forest and the ferries. There's a regular demand for rental property for the university, if you find you aren't using a place that much. It's Margaret's holiday cottage since she chipped in with the mortgage and no more her home than Margaret Beckett's caravan is. To claim for it was a fiddle, and she's just sorry she got caught. It doesn't matter that she's allegedly paid the money back (has she?) - she is a common benefits cheat, but she was knobbing a different system to the normal one.

For the accountancy inclined:

On Companies House form 288a on 26 October 2006, Michael Booker was appointed a director of Equality Networks Limited, company number 04681524. Booker declared his usual residential address as Alexandra Avenue, Luton LU3 1HQ.

The other director, Nicolas Murray of Mullion close Luton LU2 7XF, didn't manage to counter-sign the form for another four months until 21 February 2007. It eventually was logged at Companies House on 2 March 2007.

Michael Booker is the long-term partner (now spouse) of Margaret Moran. Nicholas Murray is a friend who knows them both through the Labour Party, for which he has sometimes stood as a local council candidate, which confirms his address as Mullion Close. Murray went so far as to write to the local paper asserting that Moran lives in the constituency, unlike some other candidates. He didn't mention Moran living in Southampton.

Murray runs Equality Networks Limited from his Mullion Close address. The firm is constituted as a not-for-profit limited company (i.e. it doesn't have shares to sell) which produces adult and other education, motion pictures and video productions, artistic and literary creation. It produces websites, leaflets, runs conferences and seeks communications work. The website (www.equalitynetworks.org.uk) gives a list of projects.

There is no reporting of employees, however it would be impossible in practice to supply any of these services without writers, producers, communications consultants or conference staff. Either the firm is managing with voluntary workers and contract staff, or most of the claims on the website are fanciful.

The accounts are the minimum required by law. The firm works by soliciting donations via Moran's professional contacts, and then spending the collected money. It is not a registered charity, which means Equalities Network Limited cannot claim the allowances a registered charity does, but it may find the form advantageous as it has more flexibility and also avoids the increasingly detailed reporting which charities have to comply with. It is not clear from the accounts who donates the money to the firm - although it looks from the website like other government departments, charities who are themselves government funded, and BT.

It is not itemized who or what the money is spent on. Projects such as Womenspeak appear to be publicity vehicles for Moran herself, while others, such as the Forced Marriage Report, seem more valuable. Although the Forced Marriage Report is highlighted on the projects webpages, it isn't possible to tell if it was funded out of the money given to Equality Networks, or if there was separate Home Office funding.

As the accounts are not itemized, it could be funding anything - or anybody - at all, from putting Jihadii leaflets in to mosques to gardening services at the registered office. We just wouldn't know - there is no way of telling from the accounts. Money is disbursed entirely on the authority of the directors, which is fine so long as they are trustworthy.

On 26 February 2008 Equality Networks Limited was holding £53,176, most of that in the bank, although £1,000 of it was in the form of equipment (probably a couple of computers). There is no mention of corporation tax, although a small amount may have been due. All we know is that on that date, Michael Booker and Nicolas Murray controlled a fund of just over £52,000 in cash. After that, no information. The current accounts are overdue and have not been submitted to Companies House.

Margaret Moran is a patron of the firm and its chief sales-person, offering her name and contacts with other MPs as the reason why firms should donate money to the work supervised by her partner, Michael Booker and her friend Nick Murray.

The Financial Times is understood to be looking in to the firm, and a complaint has been made to the police. The firm should be investigated by HMRC, and there is the issue of whether Moran was re-selling her parliamentary office. They should also check if any sums adjacent to £22.5k have gone out recently.

Even Gordon Brown has finally had it penetrate his skull that there is something wrong with Moran and called her claim "totally unacceptable".

For the purposes of comparison, here is the latest crop of benefits cheats sentenced at Luton Magistrates' Court.

If you think someone you know is a benefits fraudster, call the fraud hotline in complete confidence on 0500 500 777 or e-mail fraud@luton.gov.uk

Author: Mr Tynan Wierd

Update 21st May: Woman on a Raft

The FT has obtained breakdowns of where the money came from and where at least some of it went to."Ms Moran claimed telephone expenses from parliament for a number that appears on EQN literature and its website. Ms Moran told the FT that the number was used as a “back-up for constituency calls”."The EQN number is Nick Murray's house in Mullion Close, as given on his council candidacy form. It isn't a secret; the phone number and address is all over the website.

Mullion Close, Luton LU2 7XF.
T: 01582 415 835

"In 2007, Ms Moran claimed £6,052.49 expenses from EQN itself. Another EQN director, Nicholas Murray, asked Ms Moran to include more receipts with her invoice. She replied that she had lost many of them."And so good ol' Nick refused to pay out, yes?

.....

Amongst the sources of funding identified by the FT is EEDA - the East of England Development Agency -which gave EQN £20,000.

EEDA is a giant quango which funnels public money to its swanky offices, has chronic over-manning to do nothing in particular, and hands out a few bob to pet charities and worthy micro-businesses, providing they lick its shoes and tell central government how wonderful EEDA is.

The entire EEDA operation should be shut tomorrow. Except for the screams of people being dragged off the public tit and having to get proper jobs like working in care homes and driving buses, it will not be missed.

There can be a remaining office manager to rent out the overhang of office space to proper businesses at reasonable rates, thereby helping to establish profitable concerns and not more parasites.

Update 22nd May: Woman on a Raft

Telegraph update:"Miss Moran’s parliamentary office put in a request to Luton borough council for festive lights to be put up in Bury Park, Luton. The local authority decided it could not give the money direct to local shopkeepers or install the illuminations itself, and so Miss Moran arranged for the £10,000 project to be handed to eQuality Networks instead.

She was the special guest when the lights, used to celebrate religious holidays including Christmas, Eid and Diwali, were switched on for the first time last December.

Her Annual Parliamentary Report stated: “Margaret successfully bid for new festival lights for Bury Park which will make this a more attractive trading area.”"


This illustrates how MPs fund their own PR, using public money to lobby for more public money, and then claiming public recognition for that lobbying.


In addition, equality Networks was given £20,000 by the East of England Development Agency’s (EEDA) Investing in Communities programme to produce a feasibility study for a new women’s business centre in Luton. The report thanks Miss Moran “for donating endless time and energy to support this study”.Twenty grand for a report which there was no point writing? If women want to start businesses they need viable commercial ideas, reasonably priced premises, to be able to raise loans (if appropriate), and above all a regulatory regime which accepts that profits are due to honest enterprise and are not 'tax avoidance'.

My advice is to start a not-for-profit small business and pay yourself consultancy fees and expenses. It is much less bother.

If anybody wants the report, it is somewhere in this library, held by Bedfordshire and Luton Economic Development Partnership, another quango, as if EEDA wasn't enough already.

Sorry, I have not been able to identify which report it is. However, I have roughly counted the reports in some of the categories and if you/we are paying £20k a pop it explains why Luton is such a state. They've spent all the money on reports.

We must cull these quangos before they cut down want is left of our civic life and turn it in to the 21st century version of lonely stone heads staring out of a razed economic landscape.

LUTON LABOUR PARTY SHOULD HAVE GONE TO SPECSAVERS